


Eat, Drink and Be Merry

by S_Faith



Category: Bridget Jones's Diary - All Media Types
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-29
Updated: 2013-09-29
Packaged: 2019-11-28 17:06:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,998
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18211142
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/S_Faith/pseuds/S_Faith
Summary: After terror and uncertainty, one more night together.2005-2006 column universe.





	Eat, Drink and Be Merry

**Author's Note:**

> Predates the start of the 2005-2006 _Independent_ column series. Additional notes at end of story.  
> Also, this was written prior to the, er, _events_ of 29 September 2013.
> 
> [Import note: when the news broke that Mark would not be appearing in anything other than flashbacks in _Mad About the Boy_ *Weeps*]

_7/7/2005_

Only natural that he should want to reach out to her when it seemed as if the world might actually be ending; when word had gotten to him that a bomb had gone off in London—then two, three, and the final tally, four—a panic like none he had ever known had seized him, particularly as he had been in no position to act directly. Relentlessly he had tried to ring her, to make sure she was unharmed, but time and again found the phone circuits at capacity, both via landline and mobile. He found himself pacing around work unable to focus. His American colleagues were concerned and saddened—as to be expected, given the horror they had themselves experienced almost four years previous—but there were too many degrees of separation to be personally affected.

He wouldn't be home for another eighteen days. Every day he tried to call her. The time difference meant he always got the answerphone. He didn't leave a message; he didn't know what to say.

Returning to England, he felt a compulsion overtake him. He knew that had something terrible truly happened, he would have learned from his mother through the grapevine; still, he needed desperately to see her, touch her, assure himself she was all right. Aside from stopping at home to deposit his luggage, have a quick shower and grab something quick to eat, he proceeded directly to her flat. 

In his absence, London itself had seemed to become impossible to navigate. No one seemed to have any idea where they were going, nor could they seemingly focus on the road, and he felt like he'd had countless near-misses due to inattention, both his own and others. Most likely, his own.

Upon arrival, he pressed on her flat's doorbell with an unholy zeal. Within moments a tinny voice sounded through the speaker just above the bell.

"Jesus, _enough_! Who is it, already?"

Relief washed over him. "Oh, God. Bridget," he said, his voice unexpectedly shaky. "I'm just back from a month in LA."

Silence, then the unmistakable sound of the door's lock disengaging. She said nothing, but she didn't need to say anything.

Without another word, he entered the building. Oddly enough, the steps up to her flat felt like a trip to the gallows. He hadn't needed to knock on her flat door. She had opened it in anticipation of his arrival, and she stood there at the jamb wearing a short, gauzy sundress, hair wildly yanked up in a sloppy ponytail, looking at him with hugely round and glossy eyes, her lower lip caught between her teeth until she opened her mouth to speak.

"Mark," she said. "I'd been wondering…" She trailed off, tears welling in her eyes then spilling over onto her cheeks before she launched forward to hug him, clutching him to her so tightly he could feel her nails through his shirt. "I tried calling… I left messages… I didn't know what to think."

He had been in such haste to get to her flat that he hadn't even checked his answerphone. Nor had he checked the mobile, which he'd left behind for the trip. "I tried calling you too," he said, not relinquishing his hold on her. "Didn't leave messages. Didn't—"

She pulled back just enough to meet his gaze. "That was you," she said. "The American number on my mobile. Oh, God."

"I was so worried, Bridget," he said, his hand raising to cup her face. "I didn't know what I'd do if…"

He trailed off, suddenly lost in the intensity of her eyes. And just as suddenly they were kissing passionately; he had no memory of thinking of doing it, or if she had raised to initiate it, but there it was, there they were, the familiar hunger mixed with relief and desperation sparking his ardour. Kisses interspersed with sighs and breaths, both inhaled and exhaled; his hands found purchase on her back, her waist, her backside, eliciting a groan from her. She raked at his back, arched into him, deepened the kiss.

The small part of his brain that had any awareness of the world around him took into consideration that they were in the open doorway of her flat; he drew her in, kicked the door shut, and pressed her against the wall by the door, his leg between hers to pin her into place. His hands raced up her thighs—bare, not unexpectedly, as it was a very warm day, and she liked to wear her dresses bare-legged—and lifted the dress as he grabbed her bottom once more and gently squeezed, pulling her towards him.

She groaned again. His hands slipped up over her pants (Glossies; he recognised them on touch alone) then under the elastic waistband to push down as she arched her hips forward. She in turn was tugging at the fly of his trousers with her right hand, an action made more difficult by the fact that he was becoming increasingly aroused.

He ended up pushing her hand out of the way to give the zip a firm tug down, to flip open the button, to push down the boxers. She lifted one knee; he took that as a sign, grasped her arse again, and lifted her up as she wrapped her legs around his waist. He preferred his skin directly against hers, body against body, but this was something that couldn't wait for disrobing, for retreating into her bedroom. He wanted to celebrate the fact that they were both still alive and well; right here, right now.

Ready, willing and able, he roughly took her mouth once more as he guided himself to her; with each hard thrust into her against the unyielding wall, she made sexy sounds into his mouth until his kiss could no longer contain them. When she turned her head away to moan, he placed his mouth on the skin of her throat, sucking, kissing, biting as he drove forward again and again.

Her fingers were threading through his hair, from the nape up to the crown, before the nails came raking gently down again. It was clear from the escalation of her breathing, sighing, murmuring, and encouraging whimpers that she was on the edge of climax. She closed her fists, tugging gently on his hair, then not so gently; and then her legs tightened around him, _she_ tightened around him, as she bucked forward and cried out.

He held out as long as he could to extend the pleasure, and he took a great amount of satisfaction in bringing her to this particular nirvana. There came a point, though, were even he and his legendary control could stand it no more; when he crossed that line, his control fell away and, without reservation, he let go and came. The sensation of tensing and pulsing up into her until sapped of all energy was euphoric, and when he was finally spent it took every force of his will to not collapse to the floor in a heap.

He waited until he got to her sofa to do so, and only then did he enfold her in his embrace, holding her as close to him as one would with anything so precious. He kissed the top of her head, stroked her hair, stroked her velvet skin. He felt both the fatigue of his flight and his efforts catching up to him; he fought against his fading consciousness as long as he could. He would have preferred to cherish the afterglow longer—he could sleep anytime—but his body had other ideas, and with her secure in his arms he fell into a deep and soul-satisfying slumber.

"Mark… Mark…."

He roused at the sound of his own name; it was dark outside now, and she was not so much beside him as half under him, trying to wake him. At his bleary blink, she added, "Move a bit. Need the loo."

He sat up, feeling an ache in his muscles as he did. "I'm so sorry. I had just flown in and…" He drifted off as she stood, smoothing down the dress, her ponytail hanging so lopsidedly now she simply plucked the elastic from her hair, sending her tresses around her face as she looked down to him with a lazy smile. His heart swelled with emotion; he would never stop loving her.

"Don't worry," she said, reaching forward to pat down his hair. She then jerked a thumb in the direction of the back of the flat. "Loo."

After she was gone from view, he stood, stretched and yawned, then fastened and zipped his trousers again. A small wave of something that felt a lot like remorse washed over him; not that he regretted having slept with her again—it was like a gift he'd never expected to have been given—but it did not miraculously fix the tiny cracks that had caused them to fracture apart in the first place.

_Take it as it comes, Darcy_ , he thought, combing his fingers back through his hair.

She returned fairly quickly, sat beside him, reached and took his hand in hers and leaned against him. "You're probably hungry," she said. " _I'm_ hungry and I didn't just fly back from Los Angeles."

He laughed a little, and as he did, his stomach made a fairly quiet grumble. "I could use something to eat, yes."

"Okay," she said, but made no move to do anything about it, simply sat there with her hand in his, saying nothing at all. The quiet was not an uncomfortable one. Her voice seemed a little more throaty when she spoke again. "This is nice, you and me, just…." 

"Mm," he said, generally agreeing but wondering where she might be going with this; however, she said no more. After many moments, she sighed, squeezed his hand, released it, then got to her feet and left the room. He dozed again and woke only when she returned, bearing a glass of wine for each of them. She sat, handing him one, looking more like herself, sounding more like herself when she spoke.

"I had a few mini pizzas in the freezer. Hope that's all right. I didn't want to wait for delivery and didn't want to go out for takeaway."

"Not sure I should have wine," he said, "but I'm going to anyway."

She offered a smile. "I'm very glad to see you," she said.

"I'm glad to see you, too," he said. "Obviously."

She chuckled. "Just that when I thought I might not see you again… I realised I couldn't consciously remember when I'd last talked to you." She stopped to sip her wine, staring down into the glass; he knew that if she'd continued, the gloss of her eyes might become tears again.

"Was anyone you know hurt or…"

She shook her head. "Thank goodness," she murmured, then looked up. "You?"

"No," he said, then echoed, "thank goodness."

"I'm glad." He heard the faint ding of a timer. "Ah. Dinner. Be right back."

She was as good as her word, returning with two mini pizzas, her smile again restored. He ate more quickly than he should have (or was proud of doing), drank down a second glass of wine, and settled back into her sofa when he had finished. Once she had too, she curled up next to him, fitting into him like a puzzle piece, resting her head against his shoulder, arm looped across his waist. He felt a bit warm and fuzzy-headed, but content to be there in the present if she was. "Bridget," he said quietly, thinking too about the past and the future, and the fact that the trajectory for the latter was still so uncertain.

"Mark," she said, not looking up. "This is what I need right now. _All_ I need."

It seemed to him that they were on the same page, after all, and he sighed, feeling her warm breath racing along his throat, her fingernails tracing arcs across his chest, skipping as they caught on ripples of the cotton fabric.

Then he felt her nuzzling against his neck, felt her hand on his shoulder, and under the influence of the wine, he did not stop her. He did not want to. In all truth he had missed it, had missed _her_ , missed the softness of her touch. He closed his eyes, tilted his head back, taking a hard swallow; as he did he felt her place a tender kiss on his Adam's apple, felt her fingernails raking over the skin near to his ear. He let out a long exhalation of breath.

Beside him she shifted, and he felt her lips touch to his from above him, felt her hair tickling against his face where it draped down upon him. He reached up to grasp her at the nape of her neck, turned in his seat and held her to him, deepening the kiss, feeling his desire building again. Instinctively his hand went for the hem of her dress, and this time when he hiked it up he kept going, tugging it with both hands right over her head and off. He hadn't realised she had totally discarded her pants earlier, but he at least had the pleasure of divesting her of the bra. She in turn unbuttoned his shirt— _bloody dress shirt in July_ , he could just hear her say it, but she didn't, just undid each button as if she were memorising the moment.

She made short work of his trouser button and fly, then leaned to kiss him again, but he drew back. "Bed," he murmured. A second opportunity, a second gift, was not going to be squandered by settling for being half-dressed on the sofa.

"Okay." 

He followed her to her bed, slipping out of the shirt as he walked, his eyes fixed on her backside; round, smooth, moving as a backside should. He stepped out of his trousers, boxers, socks as she tugged back the sheets of the hastily-made bed, then turned back to him. She had never been crazy about baring her body to his gaze, but here, now, oddly enough she seemed to have shed that inhibition. He was tempted to blame the wine, though there had been times when she'd had plenty more to drink, so he doubted that was it.

He told himself not to analyse it so much. To enjoy it for what it was.

He sat beside her, reached to place his hand on her face, and bent to kiss her, a familiar ritual and prelude to so many intimate encounters with her; this time, however, he grasped the nape of her neck again as he kissed her, pulling her upon the pillows, supine to his prone as they stretched out on the bed. He kept on kissing her, brushing his fingers down the hairline at her temple, down along her cheek, neck, shoulder, until she whimpered into his mouth, begging him for more.

Pulling away from the kiss, he decided to parcel out his caresses slowly, deliberately, stingily, perhaps in counterbalance to the rough and frenzied romp they'd had just inside the front door, perhaps in pessimistically thinking he might not get a chance again, so it was best to take his time. As he lavished kisses upon her throat, beside her yet over her, his hand moved down over her shoulder, fingers trailing along her skin to make circles and raise minuscule bumps there. He took her breast in his palm, the hard tip failing to surprise him as he pressed into her. The gravelly sound of approval reverberated against his lips. He grazed his teeth along her neck then dragged his tongue along the pulse there as his thumb turned circles over her nipple. She squirmed a bit, writhing headily against him, enflaming his passion more.

It seemed she was resigned to being ravished; she stretched her arms up over her head, which suited him just fine. He shifted, running his fingertips down over her side, moving his mouth to cover what his thumb had teased. 

He relished having her in his mouth. He sucked, grazed, licked, swirled his tongue over her skin to her increasingly stuttered and heavy breaths, her hips lifting as if in offer, an offer he had every intention of taking. Just not yet.

He moved to treat the other breast in much the same way, returning his thumb to the first, moving in in counterpoint to his tongue. Her groans were wild, her pleas monosyllabic, but he had no intention of rushing things.

Next came that tender area just under her breast, along her ribcage. He kissed her abdomen, ran his tongue down the midline, and then down to dive into her navel. This brought a guttural plea for mercy; she bucked up, her legs slightly parted, as if an invisible partner were there doing what he would not yet do.

His teeth nipped at her hipbone as he took hold of her backside. Another shift in order to dip into her, to drive his tongue in, in his effort to satisfy her and take his own satisfaction from her. This effort did not go unrecognised. Her hands, now at her sides, at first tried to reach and touch him, but, failing that instead clutched at the sheets. He knew these sheets well; cotton and soft from repeated use. It wouldn't have surprised him in the least if her nails had torn right through, but they didn't.

Her howls and shrieks told him that he was on the right path, but he did not stop to climb up onto her and conclude his journey. Instead, right as she came perilously close to the edge, he stopped his ministrations then turned his attention to her thigh.

She gasped as his teeth gently met the flesh there, then called him a bastard; he chuckled but carried on, kissing the inside of her knee (soft and sensitive if her reaction was anything to go by) as he stroked her calf and then plied a line of kisses down the shin.

She had pretty feet, well kept, clearly recently pedicured with prettily painted toenails; he merely placed a kiss on the top of her foot, above her toes.

Half way there.

He then did the same to the other foot, then reversed up the other leg with as much forbearance as he had the first. He stopped mid-way to send her into moans with his tongue—"Bastard," she whimpered again—before revisiting hipbone, navel and ribcage.

Her legs were parted, and only now in good conscience was he able to kneel between them. The flush in her cheek was as pink as he had ever seen; her chest heaved up and down, and she still had the cotton sheets clutched in her fists. Blearily she looked up at him, almost cross in expression. He smiled, then bent forward, lowering himself against her as if doing the most blissful sort of yoga on earth.

He kissed her again, and with this her hands shot up and around him; the feel of her fingernails pricking into his back was stimulating. He moved against her, hard on her thigh, each movement driving him even wilder until he thought it might just be time.

As he parted her then pushed into her, he let out a groan he didn't at first recognise as his own. Her legs came up and around so that she could arch up into his downward thrusts, his cries melding with hers, his breath as unsteady and as hot as hers. With the detailed exploration during which he'd built his arousal, he knew it wouldn't take long to come, and it was but a few earnest thrusts before he felt himself overtaken with his climax. Each drive forward seemed impossibly harder than the last. She cried out, too; he felt her come, each delicious wave meshing with his movements until suddenly his energy abandoned him as quickly as a flipped switch. 

Exhausted, he dropped to the side beside her, sucking in long breaths; he looked to her to see she was equally spent, eyes closed, one hand resting on her abdomen, the other raised on the pillow over her head.

"Holy fucking hell," she rasped. He turned again to take her into his arms and hold her to his chest, chuckling low in his throat. This was the furthest thing from hell he could imagine—at least until he had to leave. Only then, maybe.

He felt drowsy again, but resisted, instead focusing on the warmth of her, the scent of her, as she clung to him, as they clung to each other. In his hazy, half-conscious state he imagined for a fleeting moment that they were each other's sole protection as during the Blitz; the sort of flight of fancy he rarely indulged in, but it was only now that he had her safely in his arms did he feel a peace he had not felt since the seventh of the month.

Eventually he did fall to sleep, as was tradition for him to stay the night if they slept together, it seemed. Thoughts of the day beyond the night didn't trouble him until the sun started to peek through the blinds and woke him. As he started to give more thought to the future, he found he was unable to get back to sleep. Could they set aside the disappointments, the failures, the petty irritations that had built up to cause their relationship to fall apart in the first place? He didn't know. Was he willing to try?

She stirred beside him, yawning and stretching before turning over and settling into the pillow as if to go back to sleep. His heart swelled at the sight—so many years, so many tribulations, his heart was still able to be touched in this way. In that moment, he decided that he was, in fact, willing to try.

As if sensing his gaze upon her, she opened her eyes, blinking sleepily. "Not trying to wake you with thought vibes, I promise," he murmured.

"What time is it?" she asked.

He glanced to the clock on the nightstand. "About half five."

"In the morning?" she gasped, pulling the sheet over her head. "Ugh. Go. Get out."

He blinked. "What?"

"Don't you have to go to work?" she said, her voice muffled from under the sheets. "Go home. Let me sleep a bit more."

In silence he withdrew from the bed, hurt beyond his ability to express himself. He used the loo, splashed his face with water, located his clothing, dressed, then sat on the bed.

"I'm going," he said quietly.

His only reply was an indeterminate syllable. 

He bent to kiss the top of her head through the duvet, rose, then left the bedroom, the flat, the building, lost in thought, not realising his location again until he was in front of his own house.

She might only have meant to leave her so she could sleep. She might not have meant to be so brusque, or to have suggested he was an annoyance, or that the evening was nothing to her. She might have even felt the same as he did. His soul, though, felt wounded, and all of the mistakes and missteps came rushing to the forefront. He was not willing to go out on a limb if she wasn't willing to meet him halfway there.

_And now I'm thinking in clichés_ , he thought, laughing bitterly. But it didn't mean it wasn't true. He would need for her to make the next move, to call him, to try to collect the shattered pieces and assemble them before he would consider a total reconciliation again.

He had a feeling, however, that the previous night would turn out to be as much of a conclusion as he'd suspected it might be.

_The end._

**Author's Note:**

> From [entry](http://bridgetarchive.altervista.org/columns/4august2005.htm) on Sunday, 31 July [2005](http://www.timeanddate.com/calendar/?year=2005&country=9):
> 
> _Five days ago, after three months apart, Mark Darcy and I had not-back-together shag: sort of thing that could happen to anyone when all deferred successes, irritations, disappointments etc of former relationship have retreated enough to re-reveal things you actually liked and fancied about each other. (Though obviously they have not retreated that far, as have not heard from him since.)_
> 
> And then, from [entry](http://bridgetarchive.altervista.org/columns/15september2005.htm) dated Tuesday, 13 Sept 2005:
> 
> _Have not heard from Mark since passionate not-back-together shag during heady London Blitz/Cafe de Paris-eat-drink-and-be-merry-for-tomorrow-we-die atmosphere of_[ _Live8_](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Live_8) _and_[ _London Bombings_](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/7_July_2005_London_bombings). [Saturday, 2 Jul 2005 and Thursday, 7 Jul 2005, respectively]


End file.
